Carr can still make McCarthy's World Cup squad

By Keith Peters

8:20PM GMT 13 Mar 2002

STEVE CARR, Tottenham's experienced full-back, is expected to make his first appearance of the season in a reserves game against Charlton Athletic today.

Depending on his progress he hopes to return to Tottenham's team to give himself a realistic chance of selection by the Republic of Ireland for this summer's World Cup finals. Carr started the qualifying campaign as manager Mick McCarthy's first-choice right-back but a knee injury, followed by a pelvic problem, has meant he is still waiting to make his seasonal debut.

In spite of the lack of match practice, however, Carr has not been excluded from McCarthy's plans for Ireland's first appearance in the World Cup finals since 1994.

"Steve is a world class defender and I am prepared to wait as long as possible to give him a chance of recovering in time for the finals," said McCarthy. "He's a lad who doesn't normally need a lot of work to get himself fully fit and were he to play the last four or five games of the season for Tottenham without any problems, that would be good enough for me."

Carr will be joined in his comeback attempt today by Gary Doherty, another player with designs on winning a place in McCarthy's squad. Doherty has been out of action since fracturing an ankle in Tottenham's Worthington Cup win over Torquay in October but now, after a painstaking recovery he believes he is ready to put his ankle to the test.

Within the next few days McCarthy proposes to name his squad to meet Denmark at Lansdowne Road on March 27 - the second in a series of warm-up games for the finals. He is committed to giving fringe players an opportunity of making their case for inclusion in the squad for Japan. One of those in that category is Crystal Palace striker Clinton Morrison. Morrison, who declared his allegiance to Ireland only last summer, has won three caps as a substitute, scoring in the 2-2 draw with Croatia.

His appearance in the starting line-up against Denmark would be a clear indication of McCarthy's intention to rearrange his front-line permutations.

The results are likely to be a chance in the Danish fixture for Colin Healy, a young midfielder on loan from Celtic to Coventry who impressed in his first Ireland appearance against Russia last month.

Shamrock Rovers ended a sequence of four defeats by outplaying Cork City 2-0 to retain their slim chance of winning the Premier Division championship on Tuesday. After so much frustration in recent weeks, their luck changed in the final 10 minutes when it seemed as if they would have to settle for a scoreless draw.

Then Declan Daly was adjudged to have fouled Shane Byrne inside the penalty area and Billy Woods, a former Cork player, converted the ensuing award. Four minutes later referee Damien Hancock sent off Rovers' central defender Terry Palmer for a foul on Colin O'Brien.

That put pressure back on the visitors but they polished their success with a breakaway goal from Stephen Grant in the last minute.